Vyacheslav Menzhinsky

Vyacheslav Menzhinsky (19 August 1874-10 May 1934) was the Director of the State Political Directorate of the Soviet Union from 30 July 1926 to 10 May 1934, succeeding Felix Dzerzhinsky and preceding Genrikh Yagoda.

Biography
Vyacheslav Menzhinsky was born on 19 August 1874 in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire to a Polish-Russian aristocratic family, and he graduated from the St. Petersburg University Faculty of Law in 1898. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1902, and he went into exile after the 1905 Russian Revolution. In 1917, Menzhinsky returned to Russia after the Russian Revolution, and he conducted the wrecking of Russia's banks to deprive the White Army of its financial means of warfare. In 1926, he took over the NKVD and State Political Directorate after the death of Felix Dzerzhinsky, and he took part in several important purges in 1930 and 1931. Menzhinsky died in 1934, and his deputy Genrikh Yagoda would be forced to "confess" that he had "poisoned" Menzhinsky while he stood trial during the Great Purge.